The first few decades following the Norman Conquest saw
drastic changes in settlement patterns
at Norwich, as three new features were imposed on the landscape: a
castle, a cathedral, and a French quarter  the first two acting
as highly visible monuments to the transfer of power,
constantly reminding the inhabitants that they were now subjects of
a new regime. It was important for the Normans to make such
architectural statements in Norwich, for by 1065 it had become
one of the most populous boroughs in the country, with 1,238
burgesses on the land jointly owned
by the king and earl Gyrth Godwinson, 50 in the soke of archbishop Stigand,
and 32 in that of
Harold Godwinson
(a former earl of East Anglia). By 1086 some of the wealthiest townsmen had
deserted the town and we also hear of 480 bordarii,
though whether this was a non-burgess class that had also existed in the
Confessor's time, or was a group of former burgesses impoverished by
events following the Conquest (such as the failed rebellion by Earl Ralph
and by oppressive taxation), is uncertain. The total population of the
borough in this period was likely in the range of 7,000 to 10,000 people.

Construction of castle and cathedral

Many burgesses were displaced when their houses were torn down (probably
along with the postulated palace of the Saxon earl) to make room for the
cathedral precinct and the castle and its fee,
in a central location in the borough, formerly occupied by much of
Saxon Conesford. Recent archaeological evidence has
suggested that many if not most of the dwellings here housed poorer
townspeople; and also that a couple of minor churches may also have been
demolished. The castle was in existence by 1075 and may
have been built within a year of William the Conqueror's victory over King
Harold Godwinson  if, as seems likely, the "Guenta" where William
FitzOsbern built a castle from which to take charge of the northern half of
the kingdom (in the Conqueror's absence abroad) may be identified with
Norwich. Its site chosen for height and for proximity to the crossroads
and fords/bridges, the purpose of the castle was not so much to protect
as to control the inhabitants of a town where the Conqueror's principal
enemies (the Godwinsons) had held influence. An original wooden structure
would have been replaced by the present stone keep, the largest then built
in England, within a few decades  perhaps as early as 1095,
although more likely in the early decades of the next century, following
construction of a drawbridge spanning the ditch between its mound and the
inner bailey.

Ironically, the castle became a centre of resistance to the Conqueror
during the rebellion (1075) of Ralph de Guader, Earl of East Anglia and
son-in-law of FitzOsbern. The earl may have been supported by the
burgesses, for a larger garrison was stationed there by the king
after the rebellion was put down, and
Domesday reveals that 32
burgesses had fled the town, while others had been ruined by
confiscations of their property. Perhaps as additional punishment
of the borough, the yearly farm (a
lease of the revenues due from tolls, court fines and other sources 
see below) owed by the burgesses to king and earl was
tripled from £30 to £90 (although the pre-1066 farm may have
been antiquated, and farms were raised in most towns where castles were
built). This sudden increase must have been a blow, at a time when the
number of burgesses capable of contributing to the farm had decreased.
Ninety-eight houses had been replaced by the castle, 201 were tenantless
for other reasons, and only 665 burgesses contributed to the farm.

Further disruption occurred in 1096 when, the East Anglian episcopal see
having been transferred to Norwich (a plan conceived earlier, but delayed
by the rebellion), construction of a
cathedral
began; enough was completed by 1100/01 for the consecration to take place.
Where the castle had been a case of disruption of existing settlement
through imposition, the cathedral-priory was a matter of acquisition of land,
piecemeal; yet it too led to the demolition of possibly entire streets of
houses and of a couple of churches. The lands
given by king and earl for the purpose covered much of the old borough
centre in northern Conesford; they stretched eastwards from Tombland
(intruding into that space) to the marshy banks of the river. While
we cannot be sure that it was a conscious plan to subjugate the Anglo-Saxon
burgesses, the combined positioning of castle and cathedral served to cut
off southern Conesford from the other sectors of the borough; and the
two major Anglo-Saxon buildings  St. Michael's and the
earl's palace  were pulled down. It may also be noted that
most of the original Benedictine monks were Normans, while the castle
garrison were Bretons.

The benefits to Norwich were that it was now an even more important centre
for administration, both secular and ecclesiastical, than ever before;
the cathedral brought to it "city" status. Cathedral and castle doubtless
attracted more trade and industry to the borough, as well as providing
buyers for the citizens' goods. The cathedral would have been a consumer
of luxury goods, as well as an employer of both specialized and
unspecialized labour during its lengthy construction period.
However, Tombland  overshadowed by the
cathedral
precinct walls  began to lose its role as the focus of local
trade. Wares were unloaded further upstream, on Westwyk and Coselanye
banks, while the Prior began to claim fair rights on Tombland.

An alternative marketplace had already presented itself, before 1086,
in the French quarter established by Earl Ralph on the west side of the
castle, just beyond the Great Cockey watercourse. This foundation was described
as a "new town" in Domesday, and had a
6:1 ratio of French to English residents at its establishment, the number
of Frenchmen in the novus burgus having risen slightly by 1086,
though there were French settlers in other parts of Norwich too; although
the earl took the initiative in founding this partner town, he was
diplomatic enough to share lordship of it with the king on the same basis as
lordship of the older part of Norwich. The new town plantation was part
of a broader Norman policy of deliberate colonization of Anglo-Saxon centres
(although the establishment of a separate but adjacent Norman quarter was itself
uncommon). Yet we should not ignore the need to relocate some of the older
residents displaced by the castle. The new town is later referred to as Newport,
and still later as Man(nes)croft, which stuck. Historians have tried
to interpret Mancroft in various ways. One suggestion was that it derived from
magna croft, referring to the large size of the open area around which
the settlers spread and on one side of which a parish church
was built by the earl to serve their spiritual needs; another was that the name
recalled a 'demesne croft' on which the lord planted his town, while a third
suggested it a shortened form of "portmanscroft" (portman being an Anglo-Saxon
term for burgess). More recently derivation from the Saxon gemaene croft,
meaning communal field, has been proposed. These interpretations all share
the understanding that the new settlement was planted on land not already
settled  an impression only partly compromised by recent excavations, which
revealed limited Late Saxon settlement and industrial activity in that vicinity 
and, in essence, suburban, being outside the densely settled area and the burh enclosure;
examples of Norman plantations of planned suburban settlements are known at
some other English towns. The open area at the centre of Mancroft was doubtless,
and probably intentionally, used for trading, and the large site of this marketplace
suggests the earl's hope was to consolidate local commerce there, enticing it
away from the Saxon markets at Tombland and on the Fishergate riverbank, while
perhaps also taking advantage of artisanal activities established in Westwyk.
It is significant that the original main access to the castle fee was on
the Mancroft side  in the opposite direction to the old borough centre.
Some of the land in Mancroft was held by Norman soldiers, while there is evidence
of a number of houses in other parts of the town held
custom-free by men associated with the
castle-guard (e.g. crossbowmen, watchmen). By 1086, subsequent to Ralph's rebellion,
the number of French burgesses had increased from 36 to 125, while
the Anglo-Saxon population had decreased. Whether two streets, running westwards
off the marketplace and parallel in their initial stretches, known as Upper Newport
and Lower Newport, were part of the original foundation or later expansion is
unclear, but the property plots on either side of them seem to have been a
planned block of burgage tenements and at their western end, the streets converged
at the location of another church.

Although we cannot dissociate the foundation, within a decade of the
Conquest, with the building of the castle, Mancroft was more than an
outer garrison for the castle. Part of its purpose was presumably a
mechanism for provisioning the castle, and the type of settlers
sought were merchants and tradesmen. Mancroft was made a
borough in its own right, as its
original name "Newport" indicates, with
customary dues kept down to 1d. a head, to attract traders. It may well
have had its own reeve and court. Its market,
with a monopoly on castle business, gradually superseded Tombland and
became the focus of the city. The Tolbooth established there to collect
market dues would have been a preferable choice for the administration of
justice to the open-air Tombland. When the rival Norman and Anglo-Saxon
boroughs amalgamated into a single administration, we cannot say. Certainly
we have the impression of a unified
community when Norwich received its
first royal charter of liberties in 1194, although there is some evidence
that the new local administration (now to be chosen by the burgesses,
rather than by the king) involved two or more reeves, with Normans and
Anglo-Saxons sharing power.

However, by this time the cultural difference had dulled. Commercial
intercourse, common ambitions (such as self-government), and common
hatreds (such as against the Jews), helped forge Normans and
Anglo-Scandinavians into one community. Despite Mancroft's rise and
Conesford's decline, the character of the borough owed as much, if not more,
to Anglo-Saxon than to Norman culture. A study of the
customary laws of the borough
shows little indisputable influence of French legal precedents. The
burgesses resisted Norman innovations such as trial by combat or ordeal,
or murdrum (a fine for an unsolved
murder), obtaining exemptions from these in their first charter. The
Anglo-Saxon preference for compurgation,
as proof of guilt or innocence, persisted and only gradually gave way to
trial by jury. That assizes of mort
d'ancestor and novel
disseisin were inoperative in towns was, however, a reflection
more of the essentially mercantile interests of burgesses, rather than a
cultural matter. And the abolition of the Anglo-Saxon miskenning
(invalidation of a case in which pleading was not carried out according to
strict formula) shows that the burgesses were not averse to discarding old
custom when it hampered them.

On the other hand, there were some important consequences to Norwich from
the Norman Conquest. The local authority of the sheriff (a king's man)
was enhanced at the expense of the earl, particularly by making him
constable of the castle. It was aversion to his government, in part,
that motivated the burgesses to seek self-rule. More important was the
stimulus the effects of the Conquest gave to trade, although these did
were not fully realized until the twelfth century, and Anglo-Saxon and
Norman had equal roles in this.

Nor must we ignore the less direct stimulus of the settlement of Jews in
English boroughs, mainly from the time of William Rufus on (although
an Isaac was living in Mancroft in 1086). Norwich was probably one of
the earlier destinations of Jewish settlers  who came principally from
northern France and the Rhineland  being a county town with a
royal castle. A Jewish community there is evidenced in the mid-twelfth
century chronicle of Thomas of Monmouth; the building of a synagogue
in the reign of Henry II furthered the development of a
Jewish quarter
in Norwich. It was located at the castle entrance, on the route leading
thence to the market. This placement gave it immediate access to the
protection offered by the king (whose chattels the Jews were in law)
and proximity to the place of business. Their principal business was
money-lending, most others being closed to them. They had no role in
city government, not being given citizenship (which involved the
taking of Christian oaths), and this in turn disadvantaged them in
commercial activities. Nor was membership in
craft gilds open to them,
again because of the religious aspects. On the other hand, Christian
dictates made Jews the source of the necessary financial backing
for commercial ventures; if they charged a high price for this service,
it was because of the risks from unpaid debts and absorption of much of
their profits by the king (in the form of heavy fines). The Abbey of
St. Edmunds and the sheriff of Norfolk (William de Caineto) were among
heavy debtors to Norwich Jews in time of Henry II.

Resentment at this state of indebtedness, combined with the burgess'
instinctive antipathy towards any newcomer, fuelled by religious tension,
resulted in aggression. The massacre of Jews in 1190, in Norwich as
elsewhere, was in part "a new way to pay old debts", by getting rid of
creditors. It was in fact at Norwich that the first accusation of
ritual murder of a Christian by Jews was used as an excuse for hostility,
and where a burgess community first meditated wholesale massacre of
Jews (1144). Thanks largely to the protection of king, sheriff and
castle, the Jewish community prospered in the face of adversity, such
as:

an attack on their cemetery (1200);

refusal to communicate with or sell supplies to them (1223); and

attacks on them and their houses (as well as on royal sergeants who
came to their rescue) with the tacit approval of city bailiffs, who
declined to investigate (1235).

The growing prosperity of the city, as the leading market centre of one
of the most populous areas of the country, is reflected in a number of
things. The mint was still in operation. We hear of two minters
by name, but there were certainly more in the city; the bishop himself
was allowed to have one, and we hear of six in 1235, when the city's
minting privilege was withdrawn. Hatred of the Jews for living off
the needs of traders itself is a sign of flourishing commerce. Apart from
beggars there is little indication of poverty, once the city had recovered
from the adverse effects of the Conquest's aftermath; people seem to
have had 3d. for masses, offerings or candles. Of course, the records
tend not to pay much attention to the poor, nor are they as likely to
leave much evidence in archaeological remains, although more recent
excavations at Norwich have uncovered some dwellings of artisans and
labourers. Houses of the wealthier citizens are more in evidence; they
clustered particularly along the line of the river and around the
marketplace. Reclamation of the marshy river banks was underway, and
the population was expanding in the twelfth century in those areas as
well as along streets in the southern end of town.

Another sign of the flourishing local economy is that over 130 trades and occupations
can be identified in Norwich from records of the thirteenth century, and
archaeology evidences considerable industrial diversity in the two centuries
following the Conquest, such as copper working, bell casting, horn working,
lime burning, and chalk mining. The leather industry was particularly
important in Norwich in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, first with
the skinners and later the tanners. On the other hand the pottery industry
so prominent in the late Anglo-Saxon period had largely disappeared by
the mid-twelfth century. On the rise instead, and to become centrally
important in the long run, was the cloth trade and weaving  the
latter associated with the Flemings, who settled in greater numbers
in the Norwich region in the reigns of the Conqueror and his sons.
Attempting to explain the capture by siege of Norwich in 1174, a French
chronicler pointed out that many burgesses were weavers, not warriors.
Like the Jews, Flemings were disliked by the other burgesses (particularly
for trying to establish a monopolistic trade gild), despite the prosperity
they brought to Norwich.

International trade continues to be evidenced with Scandinavia, Germany
and the Low Countries. The extension of markets in Normandy and the
lower Rhineland in the century following the Conquest was beneficial
particularly to towns on the east coast. The Anarchy of the first half
of the twelfth century left Norfolk relatively untouched, so that the
century was one of general stability, conducive to commercial activity.
The establishment of a shrine to St. William (the boy supposedly murdered
by Jews) also helped attract more trade.

The fee farm

It was this prosperity that gave the citizens the resources to acquire
a certain measure of administrative independence. In 1065 the king
was the principal, but not the only, lord of Norwich. The private
sokes of Stigand and Harold, however, gradually disappeared when
cathedral, castle and Mancroft were raised on the sites of the sokes.
The king still shared his lordship with the earl, who took the "third
penny" of all dues until at least 1191; but that was probably his only
surviving right in the borough, the sheriff having absorbed the earl's
administrative duties. One of those chief duties was the collection of
royal revenues from the boroughs. A popular method of doing this was
to "farm" it: to negotiate a lump sum
to be paid at the Exchequer in London. If revenues failed to meet the
sum in any year, the sheriff had to make up the difference from his own
purse. Naturally, he attempted the reverse: to collect more revenues
than the negotiated sum, so that he could keep the surplus. Since large
sums were often paid for shrieval office, we may guess that the profit
was good, and there is evidence of various types of extortion. Often
the sheriff made his profit by sub-leasing his farming rights to other
individuals.

The burgesses were anxious to rid themselves of this drain on their
income, by taking the farm into their own hands. Yet Norwich did not
achieve this until 1194, although the burgesses were wealthy enough to
have together afforded the money gift necessary to persuade the king to
grant them the farm. Perhaps the Anglo-Saxon and Norman communities were
still too much at odds to work in unison. More likely it was simply a
case that Henry II, fearing that to give the boroughs too much power over
their own affairs might lead to emulation of the continental
communes, only experimented with
grants of the farm to boroughs; his charter granted to Norwich circa 1158
went no further than recognizing unspecified local customs that the
citizens claimed to be theirs by tradition. His sons Richard and John,
on the other hand, had more pressing needs for money and were more
amenable to selling to towns the privileges they wanted.

The burgesses paid 200 marks for taking the farm out of the hands of the
sheriff (this in addition to the actual amount of the farm itself,
which was £108). Historians have debated whether grant of fee farm
automatically involved the right of the burgesses to elect their own
officer to take responsibility for collecting the farm and accounting for
it at the Exchequer. In Norwich's case, the 1194 charter clearly
makes the association: after confirming to the citizens all their
traditional liberties, in return for render to the king of the fee farm,
by the hand of the prepositus (literally the "foremost" member
of the community, usually translated as "reeve" or "bailiff"), the charter
continues that the citizens may elect annually their own reeves (with the
proviso that those elected be acceptable to the king). This represents
the beginning of self-government in Norwich.